Imagine you have to make a bet. There are two 18-year-olds, one in China, the other in the United States, both poor and short on prospects. You have to pick the one with the better chance at upward mobility. Not long ago, the answer might have…

The news media today faces an epistemic crisis: How to publish the president's commentary without amplifying his fabrications and conspiracy theories. One flashpoint came several weeks ago, when President Trump told Axios reporters that he planned…

In the 1880s, long before he claimed his status as one of the greatest authors of all time, teenage Marcel Proust (July 10, 1871–November 18, 1922) filled out an English-language questionnaire given to him by his friend Antoinette, the…

The West was sure the Chinese approach would not work. It just had to wait. It's still waiting. In the uncertain years after Mao's death, long before China became an industrial juggernaut, before the Communist Party went on a winning streak that…

It's fair to say Terry Gross knows some things about talking to people. The host and co-executive producer of NPR's “Fresh Air” has interviewed thousands of personalities over the course of her four-decade career. It all started in…